derstood; especially as regards the first years of infancy; to which even those who have reflected and written on education have paid little attention. Instructors by profession are not called upon to take charge of children at so early an age; and, when they do apply themselves to the task, they consider their future pupil as so much raw material, destined to receive its value from their hands. They look upon him as an ignorant being who is to be instructed; and it never enters their imagination that, in order to render him capable of being brought to that point at which he becomes susceptible of rational education, the endowments of the child must be very different from those of the man.

Women, on the other hand, however quick in discovering the most trifling marks of character,—in guessing at the most slightly indicated intentions, content themselves for the most part with understanding everything by means of sympathy. Their feelings tend directly to practical utility; and when they have once been led, by their quick discernment, to form a decision, they take no interest in general results. I had myself been long and earnestly occupied with education; but I had studied my own children, without imagining

that I was studying children in general; all my observations appeared to me individual. Not having found, amongst the various systems of education with which I made myself acquainted, any one which satisfied me, I took as my guides, good sense,—at least what appeared such to me, and an experience which had been acquired by degrees.

Yet when this experience had been confirmed, and a greater degree of leisure had permitted me to weigh and examine my reflections, it seemed to me that, in the constancy of the phenomena presented to our view by infancy, the effect of general laws was perceptible. I may, perhaps, in describing these phenomena, have been too much led away by the charm attending the contemplation of this age; but owing either to the numerous facts I have brought forward, or to the conclusions I have deduced from them, the subject has insensibly grown under my hands.

The first volume begins with a short introduction which explains the plan of the whole work, and has afforded me an opportunity of entering into some details as to the different objects which have successively occupied my

The preliminary chapter, immediately following this introduction, is devoted to the exposition of such general principles as may be applied to every period of education. Nothing can be of more essential importance to the instructor than that he should render to himself a strict account of his views; that he should clearly understand both the nature of his object, and the best means of attaining it. But how many considerations present themselves with regard to these two points! What an extensive field of reflection is opened to us at the mere contemplation of so great, and yet so common, an undertaking as that of educating a child! The final destiny of man, the obligations imposed on him by Divine law, and by the constitution of the world — the qualities by which he may be rendered capable of fulfilling these obligations-all become the subject of anxious meditation. And when our attention is drawn to the means of education, when we consider that our aim should be to influence the will of the pupil, to bestow on his mind an impulse which may continue through the whole of life, we perceive that the instructor must not only enter on the infinite study of the human mind, but that he must also make himself

acquainted with the order in which the moral faculties are developed. Nor must such a study be viewed merely as an idle speculation; it must be acknowledged as the foundation, the very essence, of the art of education.

The first book is employed in the consideration of the first two years of life; a most important period; but one during which we can obtain only uncertain glimpses of light to direct us in our task of education; for the child cannot yet speak, and therefore cannot assist the observer in explaining what passes within its mind. Yet the searching instinct of a mother will often penetrate through the mists in which infancy is shrouded, and will supply valuable hints, which may afterwards be more fully developed by reflection.

On the other hand, the period which intervenes between two years old and four, the examination of which occupies the second book, is one from which the most valuable instruction may be derived. The progress which has been made by the it has not yet effected any moral constitution, assists us discovering his real character; and it is at the very moment when the peculiar nature of

child, though

change in his

materially in

which did not seem to bear directly on the practical part of the subject, have been entirely omitted; others have been considerably abridged; and the style has occasionally been so modified as to render it more consonant to the taste of the English reader.

How far the object which the translator had in view has been attained, it remains for the public to decide.